


Return to Light

by helena_s_renn



Category: Greta Van Fleet (Band), Music RPF
Genre: F/M, Future Fic, Het, M/M, Oral Sex, Rough Sex, Sibling Incest (referenced)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-17
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:41:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22285792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helena_s_renn/pseuds/helena_s_renn
Summary: *This is a departure for me - I usually don't write het. It's not a Mary Sue, the OC is not 'me'.*Updates won't be fast. I decided to start posting my WIPs as motivation to finish them. Hope it works!*Watch for rating changes and additional tags as the story progresses.*Special thanks to luna65 and RF's fairy11 for consultation and their patience with my '20 questions' on certain aspects.
Relationships: Josh Kiszka/Jake Kiszka (referenced), Josh Kiszka/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 35
Kudos: 19





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> *This is a departure for me - I usually don't write het. It's not a Mary Sue, the OC is not 'me'.  
> *Updates won't be fast. I decided to start posting my WIPs as motivation to finish them. Hope it works!  
> *Watch for rating changes and additional tags as the story progresses.  
> *Special thanks to luna65 and RF's fairy11 for consultation and their patience with my '20 questions' on certain aspects.

After three major, international tours, Josh Kiszka disappeared into seclusion. It was assumed his family and closest friends had been informed of his whereabouts. Despite the media hacks and the diehards and the "Josh's Lane" fangirls who tracked every move of every member of their clan down to fourth cousins, not a one was ever spotted visiting him. No one who cared to report it on social media caught a glimpse of him for what would be half a decade. 

The rumor mill churned out stories, some plausible, some not. The most logical was that his voice was shot, not so much the addendum that he'd taken a vow of silence. 

It devolved from there: he'd checked in to something like semi-permanent rehab; become a Buddhist monk; had some sort of psychotic break or a horribly disfiguring accident; sired 1, 2, 12 babies on as many - or half as many - baby mamas and they all lived together in the Chilean Andes, no, in the Mojave, no, in some snowbound outpost in northern Alaska. 

A tiny but loud group of fans' opinion daily on social media held out that he'd taken up with the lead singer of Def Leppard and had his love child. 

Still others insisted he was dead, with multiple adjunct theories as to how and when. 

His former band refused to discuss it, to the extreme of walking out of interviews if his name came up. Jake, previously the most sweet-faced, went stone cold and developed a glare that could scare a Rotweiler. 

GVF completed one more album in late 2021, shortly before Josh dropped out of society. His vocals had been notably toned down, like his soaring, wailing, expansive range had been sanded off. The others went on without him, getting by on Jake and Danny's backing vocals and a new lead singer who looked like a Pretty Boy Floyd (circa 1989) reject and sounded like a cross between 80s hair band trash and an old Louisiana bluesman. Odd choice. He could sing, but he was no Josh Kiszka. 

The hype gradually died down. GVF remained in rotation for music festivals, club tours, and as a second or third backing band for larger acts, but they never sold out another arena. They'd always had nay-sayers, people who called them talentless copycats from the time they put out the first EP on a national label. Most of them either shut up or went on to greener pastures in terms of wank potential. Five years after the "Joshua-pocalype III", as it became known, the once-phenom was all but forgotten by all except those who dabbled in such rock'n'roll obscurities.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Meet the OC. No one had better say cougar. 40's the new 30 and all that.

-2026 

A depressingly tame 40th birthday party under her belt, ironically - same as every year - on the first of April, Laurel put on her game face and dragged her hung-over ass to LaGuardia at 5:30AM for an 8:15 flight to Frankfurt. Up until a few weeks prior, it had been years since the last time Greta Van Fleet had come up in conversation, then one morning in a coffee shop, she was sure someone had said the name or maybe a song title and it wouldn't leave her alone. She'd cautiously started putting out feelers to some old contacts on the outside chance someone might have recently seen or heard anything about the missing vocalist. 

Half her motivation was the hunt for a story - her boss forever harped on her to come up with the next viral, blow-up-the-Internet thing. What a story that would make, the long-lost Kiszka come to light. What would he even look like now? She needed something with her name as a hashtag if she planned to keep any sort of job in what amounted to journalism on the social media app that signed her paycheck. A communications degree didn't mean shit these days. 

Half was a nagging personal curiosity. Already a decade too old not to feel foolish over the depths of fannish dedication to their music and message when they'd hit, she'd followed their rise on a spiral of adrenaline and endorphins, and their semi-decline with much head-shaking. 

It had taken almost three months to get a bonafide bite; well, much longer if one considered the full five years. She'd hit paydirt with an acquaintance who lived in the wine country halfway between the capitol and Hamburg. 

No, 'paydirt' was an inaccuracy. Even after having made her way to the region he was alleged to be living in, the road to Joshua Kiszka was an not easy one. She had to talk to this person, text that person, DM another. Her German was rusty. There seemed to be some sort of system of favors that she was even less fluent in. After three days of walking the cobbled, twisty streets of some admittedly charming small towns and seeing nothing, or rather no one of interest, she paid a - for her - hefty bribe and received a text with a time and address about an hour later. 

What was she supposed to do, simply waltz in? Pack binoculars? Josh wanted or at least allowed this interview, otherwise Laurel would still be sending a thousand pointless emails or for sure, going home empty-handed. That much was clear. _"Alles klar, Herr Commissar,"_ she thought to herself. 

Then came the dilemma of how to present herself. Unless the man had changed radically, she decided casual dress and manner would serve better than business attire and formality. Probably too old to be wearing her hair so long, she left the wheat-colored mass of it to hang down her back and put on a blue-and-silver wrap-around skirt. Black tank, white crocheted overpiece, silver and hemp jewelry. 

The address wasn't the easiest to find - the streets were winding and narrow, and she missed the house number the first time as the two-story white home was down its own private, precipitous alley. It must be a bitch to drive here in the winter, she reflected. 

Josh opened the door to his house himself, recognizable but changed. What was she expecting, the 23-year old that people had called a hobbit? 

How does a person define and quantify age? His face was a little less rounded, lips not quite as succulent, teeth not so blindingly white. The riot of burnished russet curls had grown out past his shoulder blades, sunbleached on the ends with random skinny braids interspersed here and there. Faint crinkles appeared at the outside corners of his eyes when he smiled. Although he was clean-shaven, she could see the dark shading where his beard grew in, unlike in younger years when the bands' faces had appeared as hairless as little boys'. 

They'd never met before, yet he seemed 'different'. Still himself, unique, and not as immediately quirky as she'd have thought, although the truth of that had yet to be seen. Josh wore a white pullover shirt fashioned like a surfer boy hoodie with long tasseled ties dangling around the open Vee, not a hair on his subtly sculpted chest to be seen. She recognized the loose-fitting faded pants: cotton, striped, tapered at the ankles. They would be seven years old now. What sort of rock star, former or not, kept their clothes for so long? 

The powerful attraction to his person that radiated out of pictures and videos was no less, although again, different. As they shook hands, Laurel felt a hot frisson jolt through the area under her rib cage. His fingers! _The shape, what they'd feel like sliding into her..._ It was like she had to physically put up some mental filter to stop focusing on them. 'No, girl...' she told herself. The required introductions were exchanged and he invited her inside.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I know. I'm obvious. You'll see.

Not for long, though, inside. They proceeded down a hallway where she could see a kitchen off to one side, stairs going up and down on the other. Josh led her through a big window-lined living room with a door on the far side, then out. 

While Laurel had in mind doing their interview indoors, where it would be easier to set up her minimal equipment - a mike and a tablet - Josh said he would be more comfortable strolling around outside. He'd like to show her his arbor, as he called it. 

"Arbor, not orchard?" she wondered.

"An orchard would be primarily fruit trees. Alas, I haven't been able to get permission from the city to grow anything exotic." 

Who said 'alas' in the last hundred years? She was pretty sure she caught what he meant with exotic, which sure as hell wasn't a fruit tree. Not certain of the laws there or why he'd even ask, she bypassed a direct mention. "No figs and apricots?"

"Not even that. I could grow apples." Actual fruit. He shrugged dismissively. "Too common." 

A high plank fence enclosed the yard, roughly a rectangle and about one-quarter the size of an ice hockey rink. The far end of it ran close to the steep slopes where the grapevines grew. Things were just starting to green up. There were a few larger trees, toward the four corners, otherwise there was a pattern of rows and groupings. Like notes on a musical staff, was her overall impression. 

Josh went barefoot; his soles must have been thickly calloused to not be bothered by the sharp little bits of gravel that crunched under Laurel's sandals whenever they crossed over a path. They walked two and a half laps around the garden, each time down a different 'row'. It behooved her, Laurel found after her first two or three questions went nowhere, to just let him ramble. Expounding on his version of the formation and catalyzation of Greta's late Twenty-teens sound years before in their Michigan basement, Josh headed back to the house up the middle of it where the path wound serpentine through widely spaced shrubs. Changing topics abruptly, he explained he'd landscaped some of it himself. Since before he could read, he told her, he'd studied each National Geographic magazine that piled up at their childhood home. Images of flora from all over the world inspired his choices. It was easy to hear the quiet pride in his voice as he named the species of plants and flowers in English and Latin, touching leaves and stems, needles and branches as they went by. Easy to feature his fingers opening up Mother Earth to receive a seed, dirt under his nails.

As they neared the back door, Josh gestured to a curious structure next to the side of the house, was it a lounge chair, outdoor bed, or something between? At first Laurel thought pagoda but that was wrong - it was round, big enough to sit three or four along the padded back. All of what looked like rattan, with a domed covering and cushions thick enough to call a mattress. Laurel had noticed it before but had been focused on the man. "Let's sit over there. Do you want anything to drink, water or white wine? I've acquired some very nice local vintages."

"Could I have some of each, please." She was thirsty, but wine couldn't slake it. "What do you call that sort of chair? It's like its own cabana or something."

"I call it a clamshell. That's the closest translation." He smirked at the semi-dirty insinuation and possibly whatever spontaneous reaction showed on Laurel's face and turned to skip into the house with a, "Be right back." Same butt as ever, that was noticeable.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Almost all conversation this chapter. Please DO fill in any descriptive blanks in your imagination.

Laurel shook her head at herself and took a seat at one of the latitudinal poles of the... clamshell. Did that make her the clit or the asshole? She should give her excuses and run for her life. No, not with less than half a story that she could glean from his stream-of-conscious dialogue. So far, he hadn't answered any of her questions. Laurel checked the battery level on her tablet. Another 'less than half'. She was going to have to up her game.

Within about five minutes, which seemed like an hour, Josh returned carrying a rectangular wooden tray, balancing a pitcher of water, two half-carafes of what appeared to be white wine, and some glasses on it. "Need any help?" she called out. 

"No, thanks. I got it." Josh set the tray as far into the middle of the mattress as he could reach, then crawled up into the side of the round thing opposite Laurel. "If I get desperate, I suppose I can wait tables," he joked. 

"You've got the balancing part down, at least." Laurel flicked her eyes at the tray. "Let's see if you can pour." 

Obliging, Josh poured water into what looked like rocks glasses, then one of the wines into stemless goblets, and set them on each end of the tray. "See that? Didn't spill a drop. I should have asked... sweet or dry?" 

"Either. I like sweet better, though." That got her a flash of a grin including the dimple in his left cheek.

"Cool... same." He lifted his wineglass. "Salut." 

"Isn't it Prost here?" 

"Ja... Prost!" 

Though she would have started with water, Laurel followed along and tried the wine. "This is nice. Quite fruity. Fig and apricot." It was a smart-ass thing to say after her earlier deflection, but she could taste the faint notes. 

Josh acknowledged, "Yeah, when you said that earlier, I thought of this brand immediately. So... your name is Laurel."

"That's what my business card says." She could see where this was going. "Do you have any laurels in your garden? I didn't notice any." With a name like that, she'd learned early to recognize them. 

"Nope, just you. It's a bit too far north for the green, growing variety. I was going to ask if your parents were inspired by the tree, or the wreath." 

"If I had to say... the wreath. I'm an only child, there might have been a bit of self-congratulations in there. Mainly they just liked the name, the sound of the word. Neither of them wanted me to have a trendy name like Taylor or Emma where there'd be three other kids with the same name in all my classes at school."

"Ah. By now, those names seem a little... dated. No offense. How old are you, Laurel?" 

_A decade older than you, buddy._ "Who's asking the questions here?" she bandied lightly in an attempt to play it off. "During an intensive immersion into music, philosophy and apparently botany in your early years, your mother must not have told you to never ask a woman her age or her weight." 

"Oh she did, she did. How much do you weigh, Laurel?" he joked, eyes snapping. "Josh Kiszka, just about to turn 30, 135 pounds." 

"See there? It's different for a man. You didn't even think about it. Fine, I just turned 40." Close scrutiny was happening, and she could feel herself pink up. She tried to be immune to the fact of who was staring at her. So not working. The temperature was just at that crux between pleasant with a light jacket and warm. Even so, she could see a faint sheen in the hollow of Josh's throat. Well, it was sunny and he was sitting directly in its brightness. That had to be why. 

He spoke while picking up the other half-carafe of wine. "You don't look it. I was gonna guess you're around the same age as me." 

"Thanks, I guess. I attribute it to not smoking, staying out of the sun, and good genes." 

"Man, I'm doomed!" Josh proclaimed. "More wine? The dry this time." 

"Just a little." Laurel didn't mind the banter, but the interview was still not progressing. It would be very easy to sit there all day and get drunk or whatever with this man. That wasn't why she was here. Maybe the abrupt approach would work, forget trying to segue and startle him into a reply. "You don't write music or perform anymore." 

"No." 

Laurel stayed silent, hoping he'd elaborate but he didn't, only took a drink of his wine. She pressed, after a time, "Why not? What happened, is there any truth to the rumors that abounded? Surely you heard them somehow." 

"I did. For the first few months, it was kind of a one-man game: Googling myself. Apparently I'm quite the stud. Or the bitch-boy. Or dead. Take your pick." Josh's expression rubberfaced from emotion to emotion, though the different nuances were all shades of memory rather than real feeling, Laurel thought. 

"Can we dispel some of the heresy, then?" 

"Such as...?" 

"You didn't shack up with some hair band frontman--"

"Joe Elliott," he cut her off. "I met him once. Nice fellow. But no, not that kind of meet, E-E or E-A." 

She tried to repress a crooked smile, and couldn't. "Alright, then. You became a Buddhist monk." 

"Well... no. I went to Tibet for few months after I decided to take a permanent vacation," her face must have registered something a little scornful and envious, "Oh, I know it's cliché. A bit, _I went to the doctor, I went to the mountain_. It was a great experience... Saw some of the most breathtaking and remote scenery in the world. During part of it, I arranged to live short term in a monastery. Very interesting, but not for me, not forever."

"I'm surprised." And she was. "What about it didn't vibe?" 

Josh leaned far to his side and propped himself on one elbow. Laurel's skin prickled at the proximity. "As minimally invasive as Buddhism is, and I can very much get down with a lot of their precepts, organized religion of any sort just isn't for me." 

"I get that. Once I was out living on my own, Christianity didn't seem realistic or important."

"I don't care much for celibacy, either." 

"Yeah, I'll bet," was about all she could come up with. No need to get sidetracked. "Okay, next rumor, how apropos after your little announcement: you fathered about a dozen rugrats and founded a compound with your..." she almost said 'hoes', "harem in some other isolated location." 

Josh rolled his eyes and gestured, a graceful hand and wrist movement, to his environs. "You found me here. You know what you know. So what do you think?" He stopped, challenging her for an answer by only posture and mien. Laurel shook her head, if only to not interrupt. Jeez, this was like pulling teeth. "The reality's less interesting." He stopped again. 

"And what is that?" 

"While it had indeed begun with another of the throat infections that plagued me starting at the end of '18, forcing me to take yet another four months off, by the end of 2020 after supporting Metallica and another bout of illness, I simply lost the taste for it. Can you believe that?"

"No," Laurel told him firmly. 

"That was a hypothetical question. Almost since I was old enough to remember, I'd always known that I belonged in front of people, on a stage, performing. Then all of a sudden, my voice was giving out unpredictably and I started getting stagefright. An anxiety thing. Guitars, drums, that sort of instrument you can fix a mechanical problem, practice if it's ability that's lacking. I couldn't do either, which just made it worse."

"Okay, but that's more like, still wishing you can do something you no longer can." 

"After a few rounds of it, canceling tour dates and so much pressure from the label, I had no _desire_ left anymore. No heart for it, and that's more important than anything, even talent." 

_Yeah, sure, tell that to all the hopeless wanna-bes with no talent,_ she almost said. This was someone who, no matter his damage, wouldn't be able to relate to that side of the spectrum. Instead she asked, "Your band, your brothers, couldn't pull you through, or at least jolly you along while you healed?" 

Josh pulled a face, disgust thinly veiled by humor. "No. They all got married and started breeding and suddenly no one had time for me. I was expected to show up and do my part while the sense of collaboration, sharing, just like that, after almost 10 years of cultivating it... gone." He had avoided the question of recovering his voice, and then some. 

Not out of disgust, Laurel decided. Sadness, loss. There was plenty going on under the surface, but she hadn't the slightest how to read it. She decided to see if he'd answer to, "So what do you do now? Where's your... desire?"

"Well, I read a lot. Film, I still do that. German film has a certain darkness to it, I explored that. Lately, I've been re-watching some independent Senegalese works from the 70s I discovered in my teens. With everything online these days, it's a lot easier than even ten years ago. I'm actually hands-on again, too. I do everything from the screenplays and casting, set design, lighting, to directing and producing. Just as a hobby, though. It takes a lot of time to put together."

"I guess that means you don't have the holy grail of Indie short films in your cellar." 

"The holy grail of Gewürztraminer, perhaps." Josh's gestures were both expansive and precise. He made a motion inviting her to drink, and then he raised his glass to his lips. The whole world narrowed to the purse of those lips, the touch of the lower against the clear wineglass, the tiny river of pale liquid flowing into his mouth and then the bob of his Adam's apple as he swallowed.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note the rating change and additional tags. Yeah, I went there.

When he finished drinking, Josh lowered his glass and continued, "I'm learning German, and I've also taken it upon myself to get serious about playing guitar."

"Really." She'd been in a daze. Seeing the red-yellow-red flash of the warning light on her tablet, Laurel had been about to go in for the kill; now she had to backpedal. "First you tell me you've lost your muse and now you're playing guitar." If she'd had to pick one, she would have guessed piano as his go-to instrument, throat aside. Was it the twin factor that led him to a six-string? 

"Not... Greta stuff. Well no, I've taught myself that, too, easy enough after watching my brother all those years. We could have done with a second guitarist, live. Jake nixed the idea from day one. And I let him have his way." A little half-smile appeared, gone a second later. "Can I ask you something, off the record?"

Laurel had to suppress a hoot. That sort of lead-in was almost always either a come-on or some sort of validation of the asker's vanity. "Sure." 

"Which lane were you in, before?" 

"Shit!" Laurel did let out a hiccup-y laugh then, over her apparent obviousness as well as the fact Josh knew the old vernacular of the fandom. She extended her legs in front of her and rearranged her skirt. "All of them. No..." He was expecting her to name one, namely his, though it was hardly relevant here and now. She couldn't redirect. "Yours, I suppose. It's hard to see past the lead singer, especially one as luminescent as you were." 

"'Luminescent.' Do you think so? Past tense again, though. Another thing I lost." 

"No, you didn't." But who was she to say, especially in regard to the way he saw himself? Laurel tempered her emphatic rebuttal with, "I can't speak for the intervening years. What I see and hear right now is just as... luminous. When you're ready to come out..." 

"Is that what you think?" The exact intonation Josh used, she'd heard it somewhere before, couldn't place it. The sides of his mouth twitched like he was trying not to smile but his eyebrows furrowed.

This again. "I meant 'come out of hiding' but while we're on that subject, does it matter? No one cares anymore, whether you like boys, girls, neither, both, or... or trees." 

The only reaction was a raised eyebrow, a harder stare. "It's a little more complicated than that." 

Everyone thought they were so special, Josh no different, in terms of not-100-percent-straight-ness. That was something that came up again and again during interviews, nearly always unplanned. "How so?" 

"Still off the record?" 

"At this rate my story will be, Josh Kiszka doesn't sing anymore and ran away from his problems for half a decade'." It was rude, and he could very well have her tossed now. She hadn't seen any, but surely there was at least one security goon lurking about. Or, Josh might open up. "But go ahead."

"Well actually, I can sing again. For two years I didn't even try, not a note. Then it was like starting over from scratch, but whatever was wrong resolved itself. Or I should say, I could sing if I wanted to. Just not with Greta." Josh bowed his head and then flicked his hair back. He wore a cagey expression, secretive. Still the same tiny gold hoops, glinting in the light. 

Excited by the prospect, as if it were she who was the performer, Laurel offered, "You could start a new band. Or go solo. Anything. People would go nuts!" 

Josh squashed the idea flat. "Not interested." 

"Why the fuck not?" she challenged him. 

"Music, life, love, sex... it's all one. Not to everyone, but to me it was. From the time I knew what it meant, I was in love with my brother... Jake." Judging by the look on his face, nothing had changed there. "He never felt the same about me. We were so much alike, also so very unalike, but what was attraction for me was... simple curiosity for him. I'm not saying we never. Well, you know." 

It took a lot to shock her, and she'd wondered, but had never expected Josh to come right out and say it. Admit it. For a second Laurel felt physically sick. She put a hand to her mouth. It was too much. Too personal. The incest. Both sex and love being at issue. Intellectually, she could understand wanting the taboo. But to have delved right in at such a young age, then lost it? Laurel shook her head, not wanting to hear the details. Rather, Josh took it like she hadn't comprehended. He continued, "Jake... well, what can I say. We were each other's world before we were even viable. Monozygotic, monochorionic, monoamniotic... are you familiar with the terminology?"

"Not fully, but mono- is a prefix for 'one', and I know what zygote and amniotic mean." Belatedly, Laurel reached for her water glass and gulped it down. She was sweating.

"Alright, yes. We were one person to start, one single cell, gestated in the same amniotic sac. That's rare, you know? There was never a wall between us, physically. As kids, we could read each other's minds or something; half the time I thought I was him and he was me, like we could switch bodies at will. Who knows, maybe we really could. Children's minds are so agile and unaffected. But as you get older people tell you what you can and can't do and after a while you believe it."

"Peter Pan much?" Laurel interrupted. 

"That story is something of a modern fairy tale, wouldn't you say? I'm not the only one who's made such observations. But as for flying..." Josh let out a quick, forceful breath, a silent sigh. "He turned into a hormone on legs when we hit puberty. It was hard to watch. I wanted it, oh yes all of it, directed at me. His game, those slutty poses of his, his lips - just like mine - wrapped around my dick, just like his. My heat, my _desire_ , was all for him. This female muse, women I got with to try to prove I wasn't 'like that', mainly one in particular - we loved each other, too, she and I, but no one could ever be him. When we're together, naked and alone, intertwined, totally connected... If there is such a thing as God, that's it." 

The imagery Josh suggested set off latent heat low in Laurel's pelvic cavity, even stronger than when she had rejected the fantasy of his fingers, which was back with a vengeance with more explicit thoughts popping up as well, like his sturdy, tanned little body stripped of those clothes and grinding on top of hers. She cut off the fantasy with, "Not past tense now?" 

A noise of frustrated throat-clearing met her ears. "You're right - I should have used past tense. That's a big part of the reason I'm here. As in, here, not there. When he proposed to his girlfriend, that was the beginning of the end. And it did... end." Suddenly, Josh seemed angry. She'd never seen that on him, not even when he was lit from within with some kind of unholy fire on stage. "So yes, you're right - I ran away from my problems before they could destroy Greta, and me, and everything we'd stood for before. What they're doing these days, I don't even..." those dark eyes rolled skyward, "Happy now?"

"How could hearing about more than half your life being overshadowed by unrequited love make me happy?" Laurel asked. What the hell? What had she even walked into? No wonder he refused to give interviews, if he couldn't rein in his thoughts. She wanted to reach out to him, even so. It wasn't like she was without compassion, however the rest of the world might judge.

"You got your scoop..."

"Right - off the record. Not helpful. I'll have to cobble together something about white wine, gardening, and solitude. Boring." 

Josh was quiet. She could see the anger and hurt she'd roused dissipate. He sat up again and stared at her harder than before. Laurel met his eyes while he seemed to search hers. His chest rose and fell once. "It's boring, huh? Well, that's my life. I've never told anyone--" 

"Why me?" she blurted. "I mean, don't you see a therapist or something?" 

"Sure. Who doesn't?" 

"Does your brother?" Laurel pressed. That could go either way. "Have you even spoken to any of them at all since you left?" 

"Rarely... rarely spoken to them. Never asked if they have shrinks. Too _boring_. Jake himself is the only other person who has a clue, unless he's been talking." Laurel's tablet was now officially dead. At that point, it didn't even matter. She unplugged the mike from it. As she reached for its case, Josh went on, "How about we do something that's not boring? It's been a really long time since I've touched another person." 

Laurel looked over at him, and aside. Goosebumps rippled over her skin. God, he was serious. This couldn't have been how he'd done it back in the day. "Well that's a little presumptuous, don't you think?" It had to be a joke, a slight, an insincere tease. Who did that? Besides, what was a long time for the likes of him? A month? 

But he didn't take it back. Josh gathered up the various glasses, rearranged them on the tray and then leaned over to set the tray on the ground. "More than a little. I know. Before, you asked whether the writer's muse and sexual attraction was the same, or more likely not. I took a huge chance in telling you the truth--"

"--which I can't reveal--" 

"The fact you won't goes a long, long way." 

"So what is this, some sort of quid pro quo?" 

"I don't want to think of it as that. We both want things, need things. Yeah? We should... help each other out." 

"Oh jesuschrist. Thank you so much." Laurel didn't bother trying to tone down her sarcasm. "'Help each other out.' You think I need help?" 

"Well, we don't know each other at all, but I'd have to say... no. No you don't. It's me who needs something." Josh might as well be naked already, as undecorated as that statement was. 

It still smacked of mere convenience. "But I'm not him, besides being a woman."

Again, he avoided the more uncomfortable aspect. "I like women, too. Always have admired their inherent grace, their subtlety and warmth." Josh leaned back against one side of the dome, opposite her. He pulled one knee up with his arm draped around it. The casual elegance of the position made Laurel wish she was any sort of artist. Perhaps this article, if it ever got written, needed an accompanying photo or two, complete with Josh Kiszka's bedroom eyes. 

But, big but... "You 'like' women. That's not the same as being physically attracted." 

"If it's someone special, I can be. Excuse me if I'm being too blunt but it's the person that I'm drawn to, not their junk. As I said, I used to write about, sing about someone like that. I suppose, full disclosure, it was more of a construct, an amalgam based on a few different people. People, as in women." 

Laurel kept her opinion to herself because it would kill any possibilities and to face facts, she was nearly to a point of letting Josh talk her into it. However, she thought he was being naive about the whole attraction thing. No matter the degree of admiration or even love, the 'wrong' set of genitals would be a lust-killer. As a straight woman who had never experimented with 'curiosity', she didn't think that touching another chick's lady parts would do anything for her. "I'm not a construct, nor do I care to be part of one." 

Waving that aside, Josh continued where he'd left off. "Can I tell you something? This whole time, I've wanted to push your skirt up to see your panties." Oh goddamn, more pulses of heat low down. "Are they sexy?" The word 'sexy' on Josh Kiszka's lips was more effective than Spanish Fly. "Are they modest? Well, if you're wearing any. Are you, Laurel?" Josh had dropped his voice to the softest murmur. His mouth remained slightly open, full lower lip puffed and dewy; accelerated breathing reminded her of nothing so much as the ending of that old leaked video. At the time, she couldn't have cared less about the whole spiritual journey thing. The living imagery of the 21-year old who looked even younger, panting and freaked, eyes darting down like he'd just woken from his first wet dream... Words formed on those lips. "I love to eat pussy. Let me." 

Unbidden, Laurel heard herself gasp. Not out of shock. Fuck. Why'd he have to talk his way around to the one thing she could never resist? Maybe he'd get to see her panties or not. Either way, they were about to incinerate. 

Her mouth took over. "I-- alright. I hope you know what you're doing." _Yeah, go ahead, mister. Grin all you like._ He was, too. He knew the words to use. Did he know his business between a woman's thighs, or just think he did? There was one indicator that worked most of the time, kind of like being able to tell if someone would be a good lay based on how they danced. "But you gotta kiss me first." 

"On the lips?" smirked the singer. 

"On the _mouth_."


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> But you knew this would happen...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you don't want to read explicit het sex, hit your back button.  
> For those who are reading anyway, I hope this doesn't ruin an otherwise decent story. I trust you'll tell me if it does.  
> I don't know if this will be the end or not. TBD.  
> Thanks for all the previous f/b.  
> No disrespect to GVF, yada yada.

_"...But you gotta kiss me first."_

_"On the lips?" smirked the singer._

_"On the_ mouth _."_

"Oh, so you're rolling out the fine print?" Josh asked, nostrils flaring for a second. Otherwise, he hadn't moved but his attention focused razor sharp on Laurel. An invisible pull let her imagine what he was capable of. Much. 

"Whatever it takes," she popped off. 

"Layin' down the rules," Josh rejoined. He was trying not to smile over the inane high-school dialogue. Why were they even flirting, when, given body language, it was going to happen? He didn't seem like the type. 

However, she wasn't going to avoid the volley for the sake of adulting. "Layin' something... someone." Laurel pulled a face, hoping it came across as more 'come and get it' and less 'run for your life'. 

"Indubitably." 

Although unequivocal agreement, it came out desert-dry, accompanied by a crooked smile. Josh rolled forward from cross-legged onto his hands and knees and crawled across the space separating them. It might have looked silly and childish on anyone else but on Josh it was the polar opposite: with the advance, predatory with his mouth half open, canines showing, intent spread across his cheekbones. 

He straddled Laurel's lap - not, in her experience, your typical move for a guy but then he wasn't your typical guy. It could have been to get the height advantage. He bracketed her thighs with his, letting his weight settle, hard-on wedged against her stomach as he pressed close. That surprised the hell out of her - shocked her to the core one might say. The first surge of wet slithered out of her. A direct response, she wrapped her arms around him, immediately sliding one hand down his back to sink her fingers into the meat of his butt. 

Quick inward insight flashed across Josh's face as he adjusted to the presence of her touch upon his body. A low purr emanated from his throat. Pulling back a little, he murmured, "Look at me. Watch me." 

"I am, Josh." They were eye to eye, close enough for Laurel to count eyelashes, see a couple of chicken pox or acne scars, feel warm breaths. Framing her face between his palms to tilt it up, he dipped his head down so their lips touched in one of the sweetest kisses Laurel had ever experienced. Sweet as in chaste, sweet as in delicate, both of them taking the time to feel out texture and compatibility of movement. 

She tasted wine on his tongue when he slid it between her lips and teeth, and hunger. Slow, light, but anything other than relaxed, Josh angled his head minutely this way and that and with one hand, fingertips under her jaw, angelically positioned their mouths till every surface of her lips had been caressed by his. She gave it back the same, though she was just as hungry for more: more suction, more tongue, more movement, everything. Her pulse beat in her throat, in her chest, and between her legs. 

Lips softer than crushed velvet grew more demanding. Silky-slick, Josh's tongue chased hers, she chased his, they twisted and writhed mouth to mouth. Neither shut their eyes, not for a second. Specks of gold and reddish seemed to flicker in his irises, but his expressiveness extended to his entire face, a wordless symphony of the things they'd talked about earlier laced with lust and need. He was grinding just a little but consciously holding back, a prelude to what he'd do when they were fully intertwined. 

Fingers spread, Laurel mapped out the musculature she had cradled in two hands now. Tight and meaty, shifting under the worn-thin cotton as he pressed against her lower abdomen. What she was going for next, she found up under his shirt: bare skin, warm and smooth, a strong spinal column and flat, corded muscle on either side. Molding her hands to the contours, Laurel let herself feel everything, both his solid body and the tingling in hers. 

"Mmm yessss," breathed Josh, feeling her fingers and palms. Without being prompted, he pulled the shirt up over his head and tossed it aside. Being a total perv for a man's armpits, she salivated at the hairy darkness flashed doubly before her. "Oh jesus god," she exhaled. 

Josh leaned back a little, presumably to let her get a good look. He hadn't lost the rounded biceps and deltoids; his chest and shoulders seemed a little wider than in years past, a shade lighter tan than his arms. Laurel took it all in for half a second before she turned her tactile urges loose. Mouth half-open to facilitate enough air, she mapped out his arms, eyes darting back and forth between his skin where hers touched it to his face. The firm flesh bunched and moved. His nipples were hard. Laurel brushed over them using the pads of her thumbs and Josh shivered, moaned, pushed his groin into her again, more emphatically. Whatever 'little man syndrome' he might have, could not extend to that area of himself. Lower, she ran her palms down his torso till her thumbs met over his navel. "I think we should lay down," she got out, trying to twist sideways. 

"Wait, wait... take your shirt off!" It was only the first garment to go, but when Josh's fingers slid under the open part near her shoulder, easing it back, her perception refocused again, calling out unspoken for his attention to her skin. A blink, a flash of his eyes and he was there, proving that mouth was fierce as well as soft, sucking a mark over her collarbone. 

With some struggle, she shrugged out of the light crocheted sweater. When she reached for the hem of her tank top, Josh's hands landed on her bared midriff. It was only logical - the need for touch and connection flared bright within her, so why not him, too? She lifted the shirt up and over, leaving only her bra up top. 

"Was the kiss up to scratch? Do I pass your little test?" Josh wondered, his voice a raw husk close to Laurel's ear. 

She laughed. "Yeah, it was nice." 

"'Nice'?! That sounds like hot garbage." 

"Well, Josh, you can be more aggressive." 

"Oh yeah? So can you." One of Josh's arms slid around her back. She could feel his fingertips drawing irregular patterns across her shoulder blades, raising gooseflesh in their wake. The other hand on her chest kneaded soft flesh through its satiny, navy blue covering. "Does this match your panties?" Josh's eyes were suddenly sharp, darker. His dick twitched against her stomach.

"Yes," Laurel ground out. Her breathing picked up another notch, her hands low on his back pulling him against her. 

A second later, Josh was off her lap, guiding her down across the widest part of the cushions with him and pushing her skirt up. One of his hands skidded up the outside her thigh. The urge to move her hips made her clench but first, fabric trailing up and then leaving her legs bare, Josh beaded on the final covering. "That's very seductive..." he whispered, "the way the cloth hides you but reveals your sex." 

Did he mean her gender, or her anatomy? Laurel didn't ask. They kissed again, half-undressed and tangled around each other, arms and legs seeking to fit, Laurel's knee thrown over Josh's hip and his thigh between hers. The boy - no, man - had moves even lying down in this sensual lead-up. His hips rolled, emphatic, the bulky mass he packed seemed to grow more. Laurel reached down between them and touched, through his clothes. The fabric was thin from years of wear, and the thrumming blood underneath warmed her palm as she stroked. 

Meanwhile, someone rubbed at her over the dampened fabric wedged into her groin then tugged at her waistband, which rested a couple of inches below her hipbones. "I wanna make you come so hard," came the warm, throaty voice. 

Fuck restraint. Laurel assisted, almost did the job herself. Her clit pulsed like a wild thing, faster than her heartbeat. "It isn't gonna take much." 

Josh noted, eyes moving between her crotch and face, a caress, "You're wet for me." Feeling it more when cooler air hit, Laurel didn't relish putting on that slick-damp underwear later.

"Yeah. And you're hard for me." Saying it out loud ruined nothing. It brought them into closer contact in a way that had nothing to do with physical touch. 

Josh shimmied down and pressed the truth of that against her again... somewhere in the region of her shin. Bone on bone. 

It was stupid, silly, but her legs didn't want to open enough to let him between though she was dying for his touch, his tongue. From his position beside her, eight fingers and two thumbs all caressed her upper thighs; his lips touched down just below her labia. Two bright-dark eyes flicked up at her curiously. "Did I do something wrong?"

"Won't people see...?" 

"Through the fence? We're alone here. Besides, this is Germany." He threw her earlier statement back at her, humorously though. "Nobody cares." A finger wiggled into the crevasse. Sought and found the well, and slid in. "But if you're not comfortable..." 

"Oh god!" Laurel cried out. She wanted to relax so bad. She wanted to come, have him lick the tip of her pleasure gland while his fingers invaded or to abrade herself against him with his dick stroking the deep, hidden, nerve-infused places inside her while she did it. "Pleeeease!" she moaned in need and frustration. 

"Not gonna force you, honey. But _pleeease_..." he imitated her plea, "let me see and taste. Let me lick your little clit till it stands up erect, and suck it, and put my fingers inside you."

That did it. If he could perform what he'd just expressed half as well as he vocalized it...! Laurel rolled onto her back but immediately got up onto her elbows. There she was, more than half naked and spreading her legs for him. What if he didn't like her taste? He already knew that she didn't shave herself totally bald; apparently that was not a problem. 

Josh got himself into position without any ungainly awkwardness. His hands landed on her knees, pushing them wide apart before sliding up, all the way up. Laurel couldn't close her eyes now. She shouldn't watch herself being serviced by him. It wasn't right. But god, she wanted whatever he could give. 

Soft, soft brushes she identified as licks because of the cooling air around them covered the tendons of her inner thighs, followed by kisses. Josh inhaled deeply. "You smell like... I can't put a word to it. Something good. Sweet pastry." 

Laurel couldn't stop a snort from escaping. "What are you saying? Like yeast?" 

"No, silly! Like... like sticky buns." There wasn't much she could say about that. 

A fingernail ran upwards along the seam of her outer labia. Near the top, he pressed in to access the slick, hairless internal areas. His tongue landed there, too. Her body jerked, and Josh raised his head. She refocused her eyes again to see his longer hair hanging down, brushing her thighs. His lush mouth poised in the epitome of 'about to perform oral sex', almost a snarl, tongue visible between his teeth. The peppery specks of his stubble above his upper lip caught her eyes, saying again this was a man, not a boy. 

At first, he licked around the surfaces, mapping things out in minute detail. Laurel gasped and wiggled, praying he'd find the most sensitive parts, to each side of her clit where the hood attached. At the first touches there, she groaned low in her belly, a feral response.

Josh's head came up again; his upper lip was already shiny with her juices. "Did I hurt you?" His concern was real, not impatient, and Laurel wondered if he thought female anatomy was so delicate she couldn't be passionate. Or maybe she just sounded like a cow. 

Her feet had braced on either side of him, ready to facilitate her hips pitching and rolling. "No! Keep going...!" 

For that, she got a grin and flash of teeth, and he did what she demanded. Over the years she'd seen people make certain gestures with their tongues, often between Vee-shaped fingers. The skill Josh had mastered was not for show, he flicked that tongue at her fast and light. Thrusting her hips up at him, Laurel yowled at the pure pleasure. The swelling of arousal for her was under his sinful tongue and on the inside. A fingertip toyed with her vaginal opening as if it were her rim, till the inner surfaces screamed with need. A tease, the finger gave her an inch. 

She hadn't come yet because she was deliberately holding off, and Josh knew it. "C'mon little mama," he moaned up at her, taking a breath. "Give it up for me." He lapped harder, and when her clit jumped under his tongue, he bore down, put two fingers in her and sucked. 

Close before from the flailing of his tongue, she yelped, "You... oh fuck! Just suck it!" She heard a quiet laugh and felt suction being applied to the entire erect, demanding little tyrant that had overtaken her entire existence. The fingers she'd been tight and wet over since the first second they'd met at his front door pushed in and out of her, sliding against puffed-up surfaces other people called g-spot, what she knew to be the inside heart of her pleasure gland. Blood and fluid beat in tandem in her entire pelvis. Tongue-tip whipped around, fingers inside punctuated the madness. Goddamn, she moaned to the sky, it was going to rip her apart in the best possible way. 

Grinding down, Laurel rode his hand and his face and, fist held tightly over her open mouth, let the built-up sweet sharpness come crashing through her. The first part of the peak spiked in her clit, then in the spastic clenching around Josh's digits moving inside her. The culmination, volcanic, exploded deep inside with the groundswell sweeping through every cell of her spine, limbs and further out to phalanges, nipples and lips. Wave after wave, till she almost couldn't stand it. Using the hand that had muffled most of her racket, she reached down to thread fingers through the curls and braids to still him. 

Josh eased off, pausing to look up. Laurel almost feared what he'd say. Something like, 'Alright you got off, now it's my turn.' She wasn't selfish, not one of those types of girls that wouldn't suck a dick; she just didn't want it to be over yet. Apparently she wasn't the only one. Murmuring, "Want another?" Josh turned his head to kiss her thigh. 

"I don't know if I can quite yet." Honesty being the best policy and all, for whatever it was worth. 

"Oh, I think you _can_..." The understated confidence in his tone both at her body's capability and his own skill was incredibly erotic. "Don't stifle your sounds anymore, alright?"

Laurel hesitated, then nodded. Fair was fair. When it was time for Josh to have his fulfillment, she sure as hell didn't want to miss hearing his orgasm put to music with that voice. 

She was right, in that it was too much at first. Her legs clapped shut around Josh's head in self-protection. He waited, stroking other parts of her lazily, the sides of her buttcheeks and down her legs, blowing on the oversensitive outer genitals. Every so often a lick would land. 

When she melted into it, he nosed in and ate her out again. Unlike the first time, he applied himself more to the hot spots he'd discovered and gave her three fingers. Once she was able to relax her legs, Laurel pushed up at him. Her hips took on a rhythm that Josh met by digging the fingers of his other hand into the quivering tendons of her thighs and spinning his tongue around the stiffened nub. At some point, she burst out, "Goddammit, Josh, I need your dick!" Skilled or not, fingers were not enough, she needed more - not just his penis; it was his naked entire body moving in an unrestrained sexual dance that she craved. 

Still, she rode over the edge on his mouth. He was relentless with licking the nerve-laden switch. The undercurrent turned into a maelstrom, with thumping beats accented on the inside as she came. It was less hormones and more affectionate the second time, although Laurel kept wondering how he could stand to wait this long. Another not-typical trait.

Josh looked up at her as she lay there, panting and wrung out, limp. "You're so damned wet... I should've brought a towel!" he chuckled.

"From your spit!" she countered. Clearly he wasn't upset about it. If they continued out there, there was likely to be more of that. 

"Not only." Another bright-white grin beamed up at her. Josh didn't bother to wipe off his face, though he did lick his lips a few times. "I loved how you cummed on me. It, like, gushed out of you." The frankness was endearing. And really fucking sexy. 

"It doesn't gross you out?" 

"Hell no! So, you wanna smash...?" Laurel laughed a little at the outdated slang. Maybe it really had been a while for him, which was kind of sweet assuming he didn't blow his load in the first five seconds. "Full-on? Because right now, I'm, yanno, capable." 

"You're still hard?" She'd suspected as much. A guy got a certain look on his face when he had an erection, and Josh had been wearing it non-stop. 

Josh hummed a yes. 

"Maybe that wasn't the smoothest proposition I've ever heard, but it wasn't the worst, either. Yeah I wanna. But... safety?"

Producing a condom packet from his pants pocket, Josh flashed another grin. Pure cockiness. 

For once, she didn't mind the presumption. It served them both well in this. "When did you...?" 

"When I went into the house for the water and the wine." 

"That sounds like a song title, the water and the wine." Laurel grinned back at him, totally stoned on endorphins. 

"Not any that I know of. It's a thought. But speaking of wine... I'm gonna whine like a little bitch if you say no." 

In answer, Laurel grabbed the packet and ripped it open. She leaned in and kissed Josh's juicy lips upon which she tasted only herself now: leftover arousal and girlcum. After a minute, she put her hands on him to explore him all over again while Josh wiggled eagerly, helping her get him the rest of the way naked. The skin on the front of his torso was softer than his back, perhaps due to less sun exposure. The patch of hair below his navel had changed little; lower down, as he tossed his pants aside, the vegetation turned dark like undergrowth. It was always a little shock to the system, the first time somebody new revealed their nudity. Confronted with the full Monte, Laurel smirked. No, his ass wasn't the only 'thicc' part of his body. But then, the whole world could have guessed that.

His dick filled her fist, raging hard, blood pulsing under the thin skin. "Fuck!" they groaned simultaneously, Josh thrusting into her hand. The impression of him tossing his hair, tossing his hips, snarling a little altered her perception of him, sexually. He wanted to be let loose, but was wary of letting go. After having been the ultimate in exposed before him, she still needed to find a way to show him that he could, here and now, with her. His tastes and his secrets didn't scare her.

"Don't get carried away, not yet." Might as well get the needful out of the way. Laurel got him gloved, taking care not to leave any room for error. It was a tight fit. At the end, she gave his balls a little pat. She'd have loved to handle them more but some guys were extremely sensitive there. It wasn't the right time to get a tutorial in how to touch him. Josh was panting, the muscles between his ribs pulling in and relaxing, and she could tell it was a struggle for him to remain still even for the few seconds it took to ready him. 

"Then would you... be on top for a while first? Take control and come on me?" he stared into her eyes, almost plaintive.

Her cunt spasmed, not an orgasm, just the anticipation of having him inside. "I would love to, Josh. But not at your expense."

"How do you mean?" His fingers grasped her upper arm, his expression unreadable. 

"Well..." How to explain? Laurel laid a hand on his chest, playing with the taut, tiny center bead of his nipple. "You should..." _No, girl don't 'should' on yourself, or on him._ "I want you to take whatever you want, however you want it." 

He saw right through her, and it showed. "You might have a great ass and long sorta brown hair but you're still just a girl." He also saw the error of his words. "Shit. I mean woman, and I'm not trying to diminish you. You're a godsend. I'm sorry, no offense." Rather than pull away, Josh offered his mouth, snaking his arm around her waist. He was still rock-hard, rolling his pelvis against hers. 

Maybe it stung a little, but Laurel felt no real insult, only a sense of victory. His slipped admission provided clarity for both of them. "None taken. So... consider me your fag hag-for-a-day," she declared. "Now fuck your hag." 

"Laurel! You are not!" Josh looked a bit called on the carpet, himself, but he laughed when Laurel did. Their foreheads touched, the gesture almost like a lighter form of fistbump, congratulatory. She partook of his lips again, falling into his rhythm and seeking his tongue. It was all good but as things got heated he urged her wordlessly to turn over onto her front. Laurel might have yelled yay in anticipation of a few more after-shocky orgasms, but she just smiled back and finished getting herself face-down. Elbows under her. Legs apart. Then on her knees, butt in the air back arched to give him access. 

Her only regret was that she wouldn't be able to see his face. But she felt him, oh yes. The first thrust into her drenched center made her whine like he'd said he'd do, if she'd denied him. He jolted into her with more power than she'd have credited, and he was fucking loud. Guttural and liquid at the same time, gibberish vowel sounds emanated from Josh, just as musically as she'd imagined. 

Unlike that semi-polite discourse over her lady bits, this was intercourse, raunchy and deep-seated. He fit - barely. The friction of stretched opening and stretched walls gripping him reflexively sent sparks along nerve endings there and to every receptive part of her, again and again. There was still some sense of disbelief though she'd been there for hours, possibly because she couldn't see him: Josh fucking Kiszka was plowing her like that? It was fucking alright, like churning butter and the spin cycle feeding a tornado. One then two hands gripped her hips tight as Josh unleashed upon her. Skin hitting skin in a steady, bounding pace. Cool air, but for the heat inside her and around the back of her. 

There wasn't anything much for her to do but brace herself and take it. So satisfying, to let herself build and come, relax then build and and come again in no predictable pattern as he rode her hard. It was the fervent striving she was getting off on more than anything: knowing that Josh needed release so bad it turned him half animal, and that he wanted it with her. 

Maybe more like, he couldn't help it. Sex could be tender and all that, but that wasn't how either of them wanted it apparently. Their sweaty skin smacked together, halfway between a slow clap and applause. His balls swung and plumped against her. Delicious! He kept shoving her knees wider apart with his own knees between, reaching forward to push her shoulders down to the mattress. Her boobs got semi-crushed under her in that position; her hair flopped around her face. The prickly hairs on his legs and groin made her skin itch. It didn't matter, she pushed back against him and moaned, "ngh, ngh, nngh, fuck!" 

"Oh my god yes, take it... all of it..." Although he was covered by the condom, she still felt the pulses and higher heat when he shot his load. A howl of combined ecstasy and pain rose from behind her; one of his neighbor's dogs bayed in return. Frankly, Laurel was surprised that Josh didn't cry out his brother's name - she'd more or less invited him to do so. His wordless song of love was one she'd probably never forget, though even if she'd been a singer she'd never have been able to replicate it. Maybe it had been too much for his guitarist twin, he who let his man-made wood-and-metal instrument speak for him. Josh released his essence and his voice as one. 

An instinctual thing on her part - feeling and hearing him come gave her the greatest head rush, though she was tapped out of orgasms by then. 

Soon he slipped out. They moved to their sides, facing, saying nothing. Laurel considered synonyms for the word 'song', and how many would fit what she's heard. Many: aria, lay, tune, psalm... anthem. And how many of them had already been used by Greta during Josh's tenure as its lead vocalist...? Suddenly Laurel was glad thoughts were private, between her flight of fancy and the word association. It made her feel immature, mooning over casual sex. She blamed the oxytocin flooding her bloodstream. 

"What were you just thinking about?" Josh queried, very softly. The fingers that had been inside her and had probably left bruises where he'd pulled at her while they fucked caressed her cheek.

"You don't even want to know... well... " She barely knew him, yet she'd gone there already - gone all the way. Time to redirect. "Did you hear that dog howling, when you..." 

That got her an eye roll, but otherwise Josh didn't move, save his fingers. "There's always some mutt trying to keep up!" 

Now didn't that sound cryptic? And vaguely insulting. "Always?" 

"I mean, yanno, if I happen to be outside." 

Her curiosity got the best of her. "Does that happen a lot around here?" 

That thing he'd done before, focusing hard to enclose them in a tiny, temporary alternate reality, happened again. "No, no. I'd kinda forgot about the damn dog T.B.H. But, um, we should get dressed, dontcha think?" 

Right. She was getting chilled now that they weren't all horned up and moving. So... Dressed, and then she'd need to make an exit. This sort of encounter wasn't unheard of, sure, but Laurel had never made a practice of it and hadn't done it in years. Awkward. She squinted up at the sky. Early evening didn't count as walk of shame. There was that. She wasn't ashamed, though. Wouldn't have done it if she'd suspected it would ping that emotion.

"Stay for dinner? I'll cook. I've got lots more wine we can taste," Josh invited, still as stone. His eyes almost... begged. That was the last thing she'd expected. He must be really lonely. Desperation wasn't attractive, but he was, and Laurel knew after only half a second's consideration that if their positions were somehow reversed she'd be doing the exact same thing. Besides, he'd said 'dinner' not 'slumber party'. Besides _that_ , she still had a story to finish. 

"I accept."


End file.
